Happy Birthday, Little Bird!

Exactly a year ago I spent several evening and night hours watching The House of Cards and knitting a pair of socks. While in labour, waiting for this fabulous little girl who we are so lucky to have and laugh with every day since – my Little Bird is 1 year old today. Happy Birthday, my happy, sunny, funny girl.

We have been celebrating the evening by knitting socks on the sofa, watching TV and snuggling. A perfect, enjoyable evening. The socks I cast on are a part of a Knit From Stash Knit Along, yarn is Lidl Crelando Sock 75% wool, 25% nylon in sunny yellow and the pattern is “Hornet”, courtesy of the Knit Along (KAL) Mistress of Ceremony, Yarn Yenta.

It is a fantastic idea, a lot like a monthly sock club but we get to use our own sock yarn stash. The way it worked: I joined the KAL on Ravelry and on Facebook in the Addicted to Sock Knitting group. I signed up for Yarn Yenta’s monthly KAL patterns. Then I picked 12 yarns from the expanse of my sock yarn stash. Did I say I love sock yarns? I LOVE sock yarns. The cheap but sturdy wools from Lidl. The reliable Regia. The dancing perfection of colour changes in Opal. The slow colour changes and slight fuzziness of Drops Delight. The pure gorgeousness and cushiony softness of Malabrigo. And of course the indie dyers, oh I adore the indie dyer sock yarns – Dublin Dye Company, Devon Sun Yarns, Hedgehog, The Plucky Knitter, Turtlepurl, Knit Mona, Miss Babs and so many, so many others. I want them all. I collect the links and browse through them, oohing and aahing over the delicious colours.

So essentially I need to knit up at least some of my sock yarn… to make space for more sock yarn. And I need extra motivation to keep me using the yarn I already have, some extra motivation and touch of competitiveness coming from knitting in a group, especially the super fast Nordic sock knitters. You know who I mean – the beautiful sock ninjas who knit socks in 24 hours, with sharp tools whizzing so fast the work in progress photos are blurry.

So the next step was choosing the yarn from my own stash. I picked 12 yarns I still loved but which were among the oldest. I put them in 12 packets, mixed them up, printed labels I had found on the fabulous Graphics Fairy blog, wrote 12 month names on the labels and stuck on each packet, entirely randomly.

Now each month I’ll be sent a sock pattern and I’ll open the packet for this month. The choice will be random and hopefully the yarns will work with patterns! Saying that, in the KAL group I have already seen some lovely, unusual combinations which are working unexpectedly well. The January package brought me the sunny yellow yarn which I couldn’t decide the pattern for. Decision has been made for me and I do like what I’m seeing.

Do you take part in any KALs? Do you enjoy knitting in a group? Sharing photos and experiences? I think they are great! If you want to see more regular progress of the socks, keep checking my Facebook page.

Happy New Year, everyone! May 2015 bring you abundance of yarn and crafting joy.

If you enjoyed reading – drop me a comment, I love comments (almost) as much as sock yarn. Of course if you have spare sock yarn lying around you know what to do with it too…!

2 Comments

I also signed up for that KAL. I was originally planning on knitting 12 plain socks. The first pattern came out and I fell to peer pressure and cast on. Then I remembered I hate knitting cuff down and frogged them.

So I’m starting over with my goal of 12 pairs of plain socks this year. The first ones on the needles are already spoken for by my 17 year old daughter.

I hope your KAL goes well – I’m sure I won’t manage all 12. My goal is to knit 6 pairs of socks and if I do any more it will be a bonus.
I’m with you on the peer pressure, it’s easy to be swept away with all the pictures of lovely socks made by other knitters. But we are all individuals, we all like different things and a huge part of being a knitter and crocheter is enjoying the process. Making things you don’t like or in a manner you are not enjoying beats the purpose if you ask me – so I hope you love every minute of your vanilla socks and your daughter loves wearing them. Happy knitting!